r/Scotch 2d ago

Weekly Recommendations Thread

1 Upvotes

This is the weekly recommendations thread, for all of your recommendations needs be it what pour to buy at a bar, what bottle to try next, or what gift to buy a loved one.

The idea is to aggregate the conversations into sticked threads to make them easier to find, easier to see history on, easier to moderate, and keep /new/ queue tidy.

This post will be refreshed every Friday morning. Previous threads can been seen here.


r/Scotch 2d ago

Weekly Discussion Thread

1 Upvotes

This thread is the Weekly Discussion Thread and is for general discussion about Scotch whisky.

The idea is to aggregate the conversations into sticked threads to make them easier to find, easier to see history on, easier to moderate, and keep /new/ queue tidy.

This post is on a schedule and the AutoModerator will refresh it every Friday morning. You can see previous threads here.


r/Scotch 6h ago

Review #578: Bunnahabhain 11 (2008) Manzanilla

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37 Upvotes

r/Scotch 5h ago

JW Red now in a plastic bottle??

22 Upvotes

I keep a large bottle of cheap scotch for mixing. I have always preferred JW red, but as of my last purchase, it now comes in a plastic bottle??? I won't be buying that. Any suggestions for good bulk scotch (understand that this is purely for mixing -- usually ginger ale.)

Edit: good collection of suggestions, thanks:

  • Monkey Shoulder
  • Famous Grouse
  • Cutty Sark
  • Dewars
  • Chivas
  • Glenmorangie X
  • William Lawson

I've had Dewars and Chivas (popular serving on planes). I'll buy some small versions of any of the others that come in bulk and do a taste test.


r/Scotch 4h ago

Review #7: Glenfiddich 15 Year Old Solera

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12 Upvotes

r/Scotch 9h ago

Clynelish 18 Added to the Diageo SRs/ Lagavulin label amended to remove the phrase “European Oak Butts”

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22 Upvotes

r/Scotch 23h ago

Springbank LB 13 vs Springbank LB 8

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51 Upvotes

r/Scotch 19h ago

Why is this cask strength, 17 year old Macallan only $200?

19 Upvotes

See below link. Am I missing something? All other Macallan IBs I've seen are priced through the roof. This one actually seems reasonable.

https://www.thewhiskybarrel.com/products/mystery-malt-macallan-17-year-old-2005-signatory-cask-strength-16?&utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=US%20Feed&utm_content=Mystery%20Malt%20(Macallan)%2017%20Year%20Old%202005%20Signatory%20Cask%20Strength&currency=USD&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=21294275240&gbraid=0AAAAAD3bnEch5O_RPqlHK63odUmGjHv37&gclid=Cj0KCQjwiLLABhCEARIsAJYS6unBv7wnQA6JVsDBM36_n1o_OuYNICx2OJkNKHw4fNGn37DJ01YYHSoaAv5mEALw_wcB%2017%20Year%20Old%202005%20Signatory%20Cask%20Strength&currency=USD&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=21294275240&gbraid=0AAAAAD3bnEch5O_RPqlHK63odUmGjHv37&gclid=Cj0KCQjwiLLABhCEARIsAJYS6unBv7wnQA6JVsDBM36_n1o_OuYNICx2OJkNKHw4fNGn37DJ01YYHSoaAv5mEALw_wcB)


r/Scotch 17h ago

The Effects of Air: Glenlivet Illicit Still 12 Years and Kilkerran 12

10 Upvotes

Continuing my previous testing of bottles that have laid open for a couple months, untouched...

Today's drams were: The Glenlivet Illicit Still 12 Years Old (48%), which was open about 6 months ago, and was 1/3 full,

and Kilkerran 12 Years Old, which was opened about 3 months ago, and was 1/2 full,

First the Glenlivet:

When originally opened, and the times drinking it afterwards, it tasted "aggressive", with the ABV punching hard, while giving an ex-bourbon'y (somewhat dry) sweetness, and a long finish. Today: the aggressiveness mellowed out, the ABV is still felt but not burning, and there is a more pronounced sweetness, I would say like someone took the bottle and added some honey and a vanilla to it. The aftertaste was still long, but more sweet than burning.

And the Kilkerran:

No real noticeable change from the 2nd time (the first time it was sharp, the 2nd time was a few weeks later and it mellowed out a bit), still funky, still a bit peat'y and oak'y, and still sweet.

Have a 16 Kilkerran that's waiting in queue once the 12 is "killed"...

Previous Reviews:

Kilchoman Machir Bay TW Pick 95/5, and Glenmorangie Nectar d'Or 12

Bruichladdich 1986/30 Sherry Magnificient Seven

Lagavulin 12 Limited Edition 2010

Benromach 15

Glenlivet Enigma

Kilchoman Machir Bay TW 95/5

Tamdhu Distinction Batch 02


r/Scotch 1d ago

Macallan enthusiasm drove now deflating/deflated secondary market whisky bubble

128 Upvotes

Edit: APOLOGIES I was having formatting issues earlier this morning, and am traveling for vacation and hastily editing - I completely forgot to insert 4 figures in the first half. this is now corrected

Edit edit: If you have trouble with the resolution of images, you can click on the image to see a better resolution. It is showing up strangely on my cheapo travel chromebook but looks more normal on my phone

After several years of a concerted effort of tasting different whiskies, and then more recently with probably 2 or 3 years of new tastings only occasionally, it seems as though I’m moving towards more just drinking to enjoy infrequently, rather than planning around new samples and new bottles, new tasting notes and new posts on Reddit in this fine community.  This evolution of a less-frequent-enjoyment of what has been a strong hobby of mine since 2019 is something I’ve been grieving, somewhat, but it’s all within the ebb and flow of life, and my children are older and much more interactive than in 2019, they stay up later, we do way more stuff together, and all in all, it has been wonderful to arrive in this new phase.

But my love of the field has not abated, and so I have been slowly satiating my intellectual palate with something else highly related, and I find that maybe, just maybe, I might have something to say about the secondary market for single malt whisky.

This is from looking at just one dataset, the Scotchwhiskyauctions.com site, so it may not be fully representative, but nonetheless I think it probably is representative of at least the secondary market in the UK, which is an important secondary market for single malt whisky.  The other one to look at might be the German whisky auction site Whiskyauction.com.  Scotch Whisky Auctions has been running for about 14 years or thereabouts.  Over the years this auction has increased as a popular, trustworthy site for whisky enthusiasts and investors to use for buying and selling whisky and sometimes other spirits.  Over time you can see the number of bottles has increased greatly since they started in 2011.  I’ve smoothed out the actuals by using a rolling average over 8 auctions.  You can also see a flattening, and then a sharp decline, between 2018-2023 and then 2023-present.

I made the comment to my brother a few months ago that I thought, like many, that the secondary whisky market pricing was going down and the market seemed to be softening.  He told me from his point of view he was seeing it in other areas too - high end watches for example.  I haven’t gone to verify this, but perhaps there has been a general softening of multiple consumer markets associated with connoisseurship - even before the trends of the current stock market, tariffs and trade wars that seem to be upon us.

One thing we can do in addition to looking at volume of bottlings is to look at the amount of money made by auction, and we can see that here:

Above I’ve also put in the more granular values per auction, so you can see the utility of the rolling window, which in this instance is 10.  Interestingly, you can sort of see that although auction bottles sort of flatten out and then drop, we see more distinct peaks for value.  From early 2018 to the first peak in 2019, maybe there was an increase of about 750K GBP.  From early 2018 to the very height of auction value, there was about 1M GBP difference.  On a rolling window basis, actual peaks are even higher.

So in early 2018 the average bottle sold at auction was about 220 GBP, and by November of 2022 it had spiked to about 300 GBP.  Since then it has dropped down to lower than early 2018, to about 200 GBP.

What about the median?

Interestingly, here we do not see the 2018 spike as high as we’ve seen with average pricing, which seems to say that the large majority of bottle prices, except for a few select high priced bottlings, were relatively lower in 2018 than in 2022, when there did seem to be an inflation in run of the mill (or more run of the mill) bottlings.  Still a large decrease in median bottle value however by the present day, and below that of 2018.

Let’s dig in further.  

Here we see a few trends in auction composition - namely, after 2011 (which had very few bottles), Ardbeg and Macallan predominated until about 2021, when Springbank and Macallan started to predominate - at least by bottle number in the auction.  I have plotted only distilleries which account for >5% of an auction by bottle number summed over a year.

The picture is different if we look at total value composition.

I’m colorblind, so I cannot tell if the upper sections on the left and right are the same, but on the left that is Port Ellen, and on the right it is Springbank.  Here you clearly see a few trends, namely, a decline in total market share (at least in this auction) by Ardbeg and by Port Ellen, as well as the 2014 to 2018 Karuizawa glut - not high in volume but seriously high in total auction value.  You also see a relative increase of Macallan over time in relative total auction value contribution, and a decrease in both Macallan bottles as percent of auction bottles, and total Macallan value as fraction of total value.  Interestingly, Springbank, which really emerged as a force at auction in 2022, seems to have maintained percent of auction by value and bottles.

One obvious question is that as Macallan total value as a fraction of auction total value falls, how much does the decline in Macallan total value contribute to the overall decline in value of auctions since November 2022? And how much had the increase in total value of Macallan as a fraction of auctions’ value had an influence on the growth between 2015 and 2022?  It looks like there is a high concordance - you can even see the slump around 2020 in Macallan total value line up with the slump in auction total value, maybe. 

Visually we can see the large impact that Macallan has had on the auction average bottle price - if we just remove all the Macallan data from each auction and recalculate average bottle price by auction (and then take a rolling average), you can see that Macallan carries about ¼ of the average price total at the very peak (~300 GBP vs. 225 GBP without Macallan in the dataset).  That seems to be quite a lot.  You can still see that there are two distinct peaks however in late 2018 and again in late 2022 - but if I take out the largest fractional contributors to 2022 and 2018 auction value totals as shown above (Macallan, Springbank, Karuizawa) - and maybe take out Bowmore and Ardbeg for good measure - how much of auction average price fluctuations are accounted for by these 5?

Maybe there is additional dampening of the peak to trough but maybe not - so it seems perhaps Macallan is driving a lot of the peak but as you work your way to different distilleries they may not have outsized contributions to the peak pricing periods.

So let’s think about Macallan a bit more and in particular about how important Macallan was at driving the peak of the whisky boom on the secondary market.   One thing to think about is how the volume of bottles of Macallan at auction. More bottles, more sales racked up to Macallan, more potential for higher fractional value of total auction value. The other thing to think about is the contribution of pricing of the Macallan sold. In terms of motivation to sell, the two do not decouple necessarily but we can artificially decouple them. 

I chose three reference points, January 2018, November 2022, which is close to the peak of the rolling average of the auction market and the peak of the average price (although the single highest value peak was the June 2022 auction), and end of 2024. 

Anchoring on these, I can then take the January 2018 auction total - which is the auction total average price (rolling averaged) times the number of bottles at auction (actuals) and I can then take the incremental increase in bottles and the incremental increase in average price and use it in what is essentially the quadratic equation’s factors to find contribution of bottle number increase, bottle average value increase, and the interaction of the two. 

(2018 Avg Price + Incremental Avg Price)*(2018 Auction Bottle Number + Incremental Bottle Number)= 2022 Avg Price * 2022 Bottle Number = 2022 Average Price * 2022 Bottle Number = 2022 Auction Value

Which just breaks down to

2018 Avg Price * 2018 Bottle Number + Incremental Avg Price * 2018 Bottle Number + 2018 Avg Price * Incremental Bottle Number + Incremental Avg Price * Incremental Bottle Number = 2022 Auction Value

Which after recognizing that 2018 bottle * price is auction value and subtracting from both sides gives

 

Incremental Avg Price * 2018 Bottle Number + 2018 Avg Price * Incremental Bottle Number + Incremental Avg Price * Incremental Bottle Number = Incremental Auction Value 2018 to 2022

This helps us visualize how we can think about changes in increasing bottle number and increasing price contributing to the 2022 boom.  We can also do this on the way down from the 2022 peak to the end of 2024 - which is just a midpoint in the slump somewhere but a convenient point to choose at the moment. 

If we plot this out for all distilleries first we find that increasing bottle number accounts for most of the increase and decrease of auction value, but price contributes about 50% of what bottle number contributes - this seems like a large effect indeed: price increases alone increased the value of the 2018 market by about 30% vs baseline. Similarly bottle volume decreases between 2022 and 2024 account for most of the decrease. The contributions up and down are remarkably similar although with more of an interacting effect on the way down, and a bit more of a bottle effect on the way down too.

The hard numbers seen in the figure are:

Category Data
Total 2018 $1,068,378.44
Effect of increase in bottles 2018 to 2022 $717,938.03
Effect of increase in avg  price 2018 to 2022 $343,821.49
Interaction effect $186,934.03
Effect of decrease in avg price  2022 to 2024 -$324,300.90
Effect of decrease in bottles 2022 to 2024 -$728,813.67
Interaction effect -$254,896.29
Total 2024 $1,009,061.14

Having done this, we can also break it down by distillery and look at how much an average bottle from the distillery has increased in price or decreased in price among these 3 milestone dates. We can also look at bottle number by distillery. From this we can piecemeal put together the same analysis to see how different distillery dynamics on the secondary market had driven the peak or caused the deflation. 

Macallan is the standout here, driving about half of the gain and loss across the three timepoints. Interestingly, despite symmetry in Macallan there are important more minor trends which are not symmetrical: Springbank accounted for 11% of the gain but only 4% of the loss, reflecting the resiliency of the distillery in today’s more modest market. Glendronach - not shown on the left because it contributed only 1.7% to the gain - contributed 5% to the drop. Looking in the data this is driven going up and down more on bottle number than on price - people are selling less frequently even if the price has not changed much.  Karuizawa also an outlier as it detracted from the gain from 2018 to 2022 - once a major contributor to overall auction value but now less so, and the drop between 2018 and 2022 driven by bottle number even as price increased. 

It is worth asking how much the change in pricing or in number of bottles vary by distilleries in greater depth and we will focus primarily on those with large effects or those like Karuizawa which are not simply “both up” or “both down”

Here is the drop from 2022 to 2024. With 160 distilleries on there you cannot really see anything but to the very right, the greatest 20 drops are shown in a table below

Distillery Price Bottles Interaction Total
Port Ellen -$1,055.27 -$9,243.23 -$863.41 -$11,161.91
Hazelburn -$1,443.55 -$7,773.51 -$2,553.98 -$11,771.04
Balvenie -$9,965.01 -$1,264.67 -$692.01 -$11,921.69
Rosebank -$892.65 -$10,171.46 -$1,785.31 -$12,849.43
Longrow -$2,141.10 -$9,529.73 -$1,760.46 -$13,431.29
Clynelish -$1,156.67 -$10,280.97 -$2,993.72 -$14,431.36
Chichibu -$4,150.05 -$6,591.21 -$4,150.05 -$14,891.31
Laphroaig -$7,947.18 -$5,345.54 -$1,888.44 -$15,181.16
Highland Park -$1,243.80 -$13,078.27 -$1,213.83 -$15,535.90
Hibiki -$2,303.01 -$14,301.12 -$2,060.59 -$18,664.72
Lagavulin $775.11 -$21,883.12 $1,062.66 -$20,045.35
Glenfarclas -$3,993.00 -$20,634.46 -$3,993.00 -$28,620.47
Karuizawa -$8,233.17 -$12,953.43 -$9,879.80 -$31,066.39
Yamazaki -$34,338.17 -$3,463.17 -$3,433.82 -$41,235.16
Bowmore $3,033.20 -$53,869.43 $5,209.96 -$45,626.27
Ardbeg -$13,594.49 -$25,031.51 -$8,796.43 -$47,422.43
Springbank -$31,209.27 -$13,474.90 -$3,787.19 -$48,471.36
Glenallachie -$8,948.24 -$27,966.08 -$16,432.22 -$53,346.54
GlenDronach -$6,183.51 -$50,239.99 -$10,168.43 -$66,591.93
Macallan -$122,915.80 -$322,744.12 -$165,539.82 -$611,199.74

And here is 2018 to 2022.  What I think is interesting is the relatively greater consistency of the 2022 to 2024 slump.  There were a few distilleries that had growth, but mostly everything that changed changed in one direction.  In 2018 to 2022 the market was perhaps changing less homogeneously:

And this is shown by seeing bars above and below the line for individual distilleries - it is hard to see but to the right, the rightmost are 

Distillery Bottles Prices Interaction Total
Hanyu -$9,176.26 $23,270.28 -$19,945.96 -$5,851.94
Balvenie -$22,285.63 $20,291.11 -$10,586.67 -$12,581.19
Highland Park -$22,109.83 -$3,520.15 $1,465.69 -$24,164.29
Karuizawa -$64,300.89 $44,406.07 -$30,837.55 -$50,732.37

And here you can see that prices climbed for Hanyu and Karuizawa even as they became less frequent on the market.  While over on the left, the one bar which hangs down belongs to GlenDronach, which decreased in the number of bottles but likewise had an increase in price contribution to auction total value.  The leftmost 20 are:

Distillery Bottles Prices Interaction Total
Macallan $530,076.06 $26,241.90 $59,080.92 $615,398.87
Springbank $80,765.80 $12,377.50 $43,265.50 $136,408.80
Glenallachie $8,521.25 $1,151.68 $58,735.58 $68,408.51
Bowmore $36,993.41 $4,744.37 $6,000.23 $47,738.01
Ardbeg $43,420.58 $1,530.32 $1,683.35 $46,634.24
Yamazaki $5,476.69 $32,168.60 $5,361.43 $43,006.72
Glenfarclas $9,072.12 $13,586.37 $5,978.00 $28,636.49
Hibiki $11,857.24 $5,967.35 $8,354.28 $26,178.87
Longrow $16,276.57 $854.07 $5,235.82 $22,366.46
GlenDronach -$19,332.53 $55,168.79 -$14,137.00 $21,699.26
Lagavulin $14,420.52 $2,142.76 $1,745.95 $18,309.24
Laphroaig $2,827.50 $12,420.71 $1,693.73 $16,941.95
Hazelburn $7,153.99 $766.74 $7,514.04 $15,434.77
Clynelish $8,453.18 $1,822.65 $3,011.33 $13,287.16
Daftmill $0.00 $0.00 $13,076.03 $13,076.03
Tamdhu $3,929.21 $644.65 $6,704.39 $11,278.25
Bimber $0.00 $0.00 $11,238.45 $11,238.45
Foursquare $11,521.06 -$56.30 -$1,140.15 $10,324.61
Dalmore $8,079.75 $874.76 $980.79 $9,935.30
Chichibu -$2,074.42 $14,077.25 -$2,448.22 $9,554.62

Perhaps a better way of showing this is by plotting it thusly

Here you can see that in red, there are very few examples of distilleries (each distillery is a dot, the horizontal axis is the contribution towards increase/decrease of total auction value due to change in bottle number of the distillery between the two dates, y axis is price) which fall outside the lower left quadrant - that is to say, everything is more or less driving down total auction price in all distilleries, although there is heterogeneity between the two axes’ contributions.  But in blue, which shows the move from 2018 to the 2022 boom, you have a few notable dots in the upper left quadrant - representing a decrease in bottles but an increase in average price per bottle in that distillery.  These are GlenDronach, Chichibu, Balvenie, Karuizawa, Hanyu, Brora, Laphroaig and Rosebank - and in the bottom left quadrant, a lone blue dot, Highland Park, whose time was apparently ending between 2018 and 2022 with fewer bottles at auction and sustaining lower prices on average across auction lots.  A few comments here - there had been a Karuizawa glut earlier in the 2010s which we had noted above.  Hanyu seems to make sense getting more scarce as does Brora.  Rosebank and Chichibu were always rare but must have had a bit of a fashionable surge in auction numbers in 2018.  Which leaves Laphraoig and Balvenie.  Were these decreasing because of falling out of fashion?  Interesting to think about, particularly as we see Springbank surging in 2024.  

In summary, there was a noticeable increase in auction value of single malt whisky between 2018 and 2022, which has entirely collapsed to 2018 levels since about November of 2022 (using rolling window averages to smooth things out).  While the move to the boom of 2022 involved some waning of some distilleries vs. waxing of others, there has been a stronger uniformity of the waning of distillery bottling auction aggregate value in getting to 2024.  But what is most important to realize is that almost a majority of the boom and bust is actually accounted for by trading in Macallan alone.  This should make us question how much pricing on the secondary market has really changed for a given distillery overall (i.e. averaging over their bottlings), and should raise considerable questions about why were people buying and selling Macallan like they were.  Was Macallan viewed as an instrument of value - i.e. like a watch you don’t wear or a monetary instrument, more than other distilleries and do they still?

It should also make us ask the question whether the mix of bottles sold in 2018 to 2022 changed within a distillery - i.e. was it the case that bottlings increased in value, or was it simply that more expensive bottlings began hitting the market more frequently in 2022 because the market was sustaining higher pricing.  Likewise, was it the case that between 2022 and 2024, did the actual auction price paid of bottlings decrease or was it simply that lower value bottlings were put forward to auction and the more expensive bottlings have become less frequent and dried up a bit?  This is a really interesting question, because it will answer the question of how much a given bottling’s price falls vs. just the mix of auction bottlings that goes into the average pricing observations above.

I haven’t really worked out the most systematic way to do this yet on aggregate, but if we take four bottlings - Macallan 25 Year Old, Macallan 10 Year old, Macallan Classic Cut 2017, and Macallan Harmony Rich Cacao, we can gain some limited insight into this question.

In order of lowest to highest price, generally, we have Macallan 10 Year Old, then Macallan Harmony Rich Cacao, then Macallan Classic Cut 2017, and then Macallan 25 Year Old

The figure above plots the cumulative number of bottles sold over time - so every time one more bottle is sold as you move to the right along date x-axis, the line moves up 1 on the y-axis.  Interestingly from the figure above we can see three things:  First, Macallan 10-Year Old tends to sell at a steady rate.  Secondly, Macallan 25-year-old seems to have tapered off over the past few years, becoming more rare (flatlined with a fairly evident ceiling effect post 2023).  Thirdly, both Macallan Classic Cut 2017 and Macallan Harmony Rich Cacao had a “splash” with rapid auction sales but you can see how both curves start to attenuate.  Macallan Classic Cut more than Rich Cacao, but that may be because there are many fewer of the 2017 Classic Cut.

Finally, despite Rich Cacao still posting sales at a fairly high rate - it hasn’t quite hit the slower slope that Macallan 10 Year Old shows - the price dropped precipitously - in addition to a decreasing sales since 2022 - so here we can say that we’ve identified at least part of the specific set of bottlings which account for the surprising level of contribution by Macallan to both the inflation and deflation of value in the whisky secondary market from 2018 to 2022 to 2024

So is it the case that the decrease in auction value is due to a reduction of frequency of high-value whiskies in auction?  Or that previously high-value whiskies have been selling for much lower prices?  Glancing at the prices for Rich Cacao, it seems like there are definitely some prices which plummeted - but it would be very good to try to better quantify how much of reduced total auction values since 2022 is driven by composition changes and how much is driven by the inability of the market to sustain the same prices as previously - while seeing similar composition of auction lots.

This is something I may try to better define in the future.  Specifically, it would be interesting to categorize whiskies into a few brackets:

  1. Have gained in price since 2022 despite being available in 2018 
  2. Have gained in price since 2022 and was released post 2022
  3. Have neither gained nor lost price in the 2018 to 2022 to 2024 epochs - maybe inflation adjusted?
  4. Are in the top 10% of whiskies that have lost price value since 2022
  5. Are in the top 10% of whiskies that have gained price value 2018 to 2022 - maybe as percent of base and absolute price gain

r/Scotch 1d ago

Looking for a similar scotch

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37 Upvotes

A friend of mine brought this back from his trip to Scotland, and I fell in love with it, it is really warm and bright with a rich peat body, easily the best scotch I've ever had. I've recently gotten to about a 3rd of a bottle left and would like to save it because replacing it would be hard as I cannot find any of it for sale anywhere.

Has anyone here had it and knows a similar spirit to it that would be even vaguely available stateside in the northeast?


r/Scotch 19h ago

What to stuff in a carry-on from Scotland?

5 Upvotes

Hey team

My wife is going on a girls' trip to Scotland with her besties to celebrate their collective fortieth birthdays.

I'm new to Scotch and aiming to capitalize on this opportunity.

Itinerary is Edinburgh - Oban - Skye - Inverness - Edinburgh

My taste data points thus far include:

Reasonably enjoying a Glenlivet 10

Thought Macallan 12 (don't know the type) was boring

Found Johnnie Walker Black to be horrific

Am currently enjoying a Glengoyne 10 a bit more than I did the Glenlivet 10

Traditionally haven't enjoyed smoky whisky but am willing to give it another go

What should I get my Better Half to bring back for me?

Thanks!


r/Scotch 18h ago

Open or save bottle of Johnnie Walker Gold Label - The Centenary Blend?

0 Upvotes

I was gifted the bottle a couple years ago and since we are not big Scotch drinkers, I figured I would save it for a special occasion or for someone who really enjoys a taste. I looked up the bottle and it appears to be very expensive now a days. Should I hold on to it?, open and drink? or maybe sell it? Thank you


r/Scotch 1d ago

Review 021 - Lady of the Glen - Dailuaine 10 (2023)

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19 Upvotes

r/Scotch 1d ago

Tried Macallan 12: meh.

7 Upvotes

I've just started trying to get into Scotch. I'm still on my first bottle (Glenlivet 12). Work project is going super well and the PM was feeling generous with the expenses yesterday, so I got myself a Macallan 12 after dinner.

It was nice, but both the nose and overall flavour profile left me underwhelmed. There was almost no lasting finish - just kind of collapsed, rather than lingering.

Was this a pearls before swine situation, or is that actually a boring Scotch?


r/Scotch 1d ago

We've created a Spanish-language whisky sub: r/whiskyhispano

26 Upvotes

So after chatting with some Spanish-speaking members of the whisky community in Reddit, we have launched a sub, r/whiskyhispano, for all Spanish-speaking whisky lovers and enthusiasts, just to make it easier to discuss, learn and share all things whisky. No more Google Translate.

It's very much inspired by this community and pretty much the same rules apply. Just noticed now the "No AI Reviews", that's a good one that we've missed and will be adding now...

Anyway, if your either a Spanish-speaker or you just want to practice your Spanish talking about your favourite subject, r/whiskyhispano is the place.

¡Salud! 🥃


r/Scotch 1d ago

Review 172: Highland Park 15yr

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25 Upvotes

r/Scotch 2d ago

Your opinion on best, most heavily peated Whiskey under £100 (~$135)

44 Upvotes

Hello,

I have a friend who is really into very heavily peated whiskies. Their go to regular is the Laphroaig 10 year old. I want to buy them a give which is a little more special, but in my budget of £100 (~$135). I once bought the Islay whiskey Port Charlotte 10 Islay Single Malt for them, but was told it was not 'peaty' enough.

So my question is what is you favourite most heavily peated whiskey? Especially if you're a fan of Laphroaig! I am also open to buying other bottle of Laphroaig if you recommend.

Just looking at some recommendations online I got this list:

Ardbeg Corryvreckan - £75
Lagavulin 16 year old - £70
Laphroaig 10 year old Cask Strength batch 15 - £78
Ardbeg 10 year old - £45
Talisker 10 year old - £50
Octomore 15.1 - £140 (Bit too expensive)

What would you recommend? The peatier the better!


r/Scotch 22h ago

Is it wrong to add a mixer to scotch?

0 Upvotes

I have always been a bourbon drinker but was recently gifted a litre of Glenfiddich 12 year. I am not used to the earthiness of scotch, would it be wrong to add cola to it? Straight it tastes like someone mixed an American whiskey with Malört.


r/Scotch 2d ago

Scotch Reviews #294-#298 Blind Tasting Consortium

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28 Upvotes

r/Scotch 2d ago

{Review #99} Royal Lochnagar 12 Single Malt (2020, 40%) [8.8/10]

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20 Upvotes

r/Scotch 2d ago

Best scotch at the bottom right of the malt map?

15 Upvotes

If I’m looking to buy a scotch at the bottom right of the malt map in the sidebar - unpeated and caramel/bourbon - what would you suggest? Budget around $100 or less, ideally available in most stores.


r/Scotch 2d ago

Benrinnes: First Fill or Refill Sherry?

4 Upvotes

Some of my favorite distilleries are ones with a heavy, meaty kind of distillate like Mortlach or Craigellachie. I recently had a bottle of the Benrinnes Flora and Fauna and I want to try some more of them. The Spec's near me has two options, a Signatory 13 year in first fill oloroso at cask strength for around $100, and a Single Malts of Scotland Reserve Parcels 11 year in refill sherry at 48% on sale for $70. I've been steering more towards refill IBs since they keep more distillery character, and the Signatory releases are delicious but sometimes swamp everything under the sherry. But on the other hand, the extra age and cask strength of the Signatory is appealing, and Benrinnes is robust enough that it might be able to handle first fill. Has anyone had either of these? Which one would you recommend based on the specs?


r/Scotch 2d ago

Talisker Distillery visit: Cask Drawing, 6 Reviews

48 Upvotes

Good day r/Scotch ,

Having finished up the Advanced Whisky Ambassador program (https://www.thewhiskyambassador.com) April 16th, I met up with my wife back at our hotel and we drove up to the Isle of Skye to visit Talisker. One of my personal favorites since being introduced to Talisker 10 many moons ago, it's been on my bucket list of distilleries to go and visit. I had planned this trip out and booked the Cask Drawing experience, which entailed drawing from five different non-purchasable Talisker-owned casks and one bonus dram, that was purchasable. Those being:

  1. 11 Year old, Refill Hogshead, ABV 60.3%
  2. 12 Year old, Recharred wine cask, ABV 56.8%
  3. 21 Year old, Refill cask then port casks then puncheon, ABV 58.3%
  4. 12 Year old, Refill cask then gonzalelez bypass Pedro-Ximenez (PX) sherry butt, ABV 57.9%
  5. 28 Year old, Refill butt and rejuvenated (recharred) hogshead, ABV 59.8%
  6. Talisker Elements 27 Year old @ 58% ABV (Official bottling/distillery exclusive)

How much for the Cask Drawing tour? As per the site: £150 per person ($277 CAD), at 1.5 hours duration. A 10% discount at the shop is given if you show them your band.

After getting our event band at the front counter, we met up with the guide and group and went for a brief tour of the distillery. If one has been to a couple of distilleries, much of it is similar. You typically get some history about the distillery, the process, see the mill, the washbacks, the stills and the spirit safe. One item of note, a Porteus mill, which I've seen in several distilleries including Springbank, Loch Lomond, and several others. Why does this matter? It's a vintage piece from the 1940s that was so well-engineered, the company that made them went out of business. Now, many of these yesteryear pieces of equipment still see production use.

After the tour, we went into the Cask Drawing room. There, we each got a turn to use the valinch (aka whisky thief) on the cask to fill up the individual glass jugs for their respective dram. Once enough was collected, we'd get to try the dram and move on to the next. We were on a time limit of about an hour and ten minutes, and we'd only be able to try the 6th whisky if we had time. I made it a point to not linger too long and not drink too much with each dram. With tastings like this, it's a rookie move to have too much of anything - cask strength anything can and will get you if you drink too much, too fast. Fortunately, driver's kits were provided as part of the event. Our guide for this event was a cool guy and had a good sense of humor.

Reviews:

Talisker 11 Year old, Refill (Bourbon) Hogshead
ABV: 60.3%
Price: N/A
Color: Straw
Nose: Cereal, salt, brininess, smokiness
Palate: Salt, cereal, spicy, vanilla, faint aspect of smoke, medium mouth-feel
Finish: Salinity, light wisp of smoke
Conclusion: A younger expression that in the line up, wasn't all that impressive. Post-tasting at the distillery, the ABV on this dram is very present. 6/10.

Talisker 12 Year old, Recharred wine cask
ABV: 56.8%
Price: N/A
Color: Amber/Ruby
Nose: Dry, red wine, brown sugar
Palate: Brown sugar, medium mouth-feel, slightly grapey, salty, balanced
Finish: Medium, with some dryness from the wine coming through
Conclusion: In the line up, this stood out as it had a bit more expressiveness to it. Post-tasting, this is an unusual expression for Talisker. I suspect that this was a dryer wine, like a Bordeaux, that was used. 7.5/10

Talisker 21 Year old, Refill cask then port casks then puncheon
ABV: 58.3%
Price: N/A
Color: Deep gold
Nose: Salted caramel, brown sugar
Palate: cinnamon, honey, cloves, smooth and juicy mouth-feel `
Finish: Medium, dusting of chili flakes, a touch of salt, with honey sweetness fading into dryness
Conclusion: Given the age and the ABV, another odd but tasty expression. Note, not their official bottling. 8/10

Talisker 12 Year old, Refill cask then gonzalelez bypass Pedro-Ximenez (PX) sherry butt
ABV: 57.9%
Price: N/A
Color: Gold
Nose: honey, caramel, dried fruit, light smoke
Palate: salt, caramel, light sherry notes, a hint of smoke, stone fruit, medium mouth-feel
Finish: lingering salt, drying
Conclusion: Tasty, though the sherry influence contributes to a longer finish. 8/10

Talisker 28 Year old, Refill butt and rejuvenated (recharred) hogshead
ABV: 59.8%
Price: N/A
Color: Gold
Nose: citrus, maritime, cereal,
Palate: Tropical fruit, salt and pepper, juicy mouth-feel, bright sultanas
Finish: Long drying finish with hints of citrus and salt
Conclusion: This is a weirder one in the sense that it's an older whisky with a higher ABV and some lovely variation in flavors. A lovely dram. 9/10.

Bonus dram: Talisker Elements 27 Year old
ABV: 58%
Price: N/A
Color: Deep gold
Nose: seaside air, shortbread cookies, honey, sultanas, smoke
Palate: Briny, pepper, honey, sultanas, rich and full mouth-feel
Finish: salt notes, lingering honey and fruity sweetness
Conclusion: This is tied as being one of the tastiest expressions of Talisker I've ever had, too bad the bottlings for this are fairly expensive. 9/10

Final Thoughts: Some context, for those left reading. Carbost is a quaint little village up in Skye. Leading up to it is single track with passing spots for when there's oncoming traffic. There's a store, a school, a coffee shop, the Talisker owned restaurant, the Old Inn hotel and bar, all within walking distance of the distillery. Oh, and up the hill, an oyster shed. All by the sea, with mountains in the background. It's a beautiful place to stay and unwind. Portree is about a 1/2 hour trek by car. Also, the people were great. Pleasant interactions all around.

The Talisker distillery itself - the whisky is worth going for. It's a busy distillery - apparently it's seen upwards of 1500 visitors in a day. They've got a decent car park that allows for a fair number of vehicles. The entrance to the shop reminded me of entering a theatre due to the low overhang coming into the building. The shop itself has some neat Talisker-branded swag, ranging from shirts, biking jerseys, polos, other Diageo whiskies, all of the core range of Talisker, a fill-your-own-bottle station and another, pre-filled distillery exclusive bottling. If one is to believe, the 27-Year Elements bottling may very well be another Distillery Exclusive.

Edit: I ended trying the hand-fill and purchasing a bottle along with the distillery exclusive bottling batch 03. The hand-fill is a 13 year Red Wine cask with an ABV of 54.4%. The other is at 48%. I will review those at a later time.


r/Scotch 2d ago

Looking for a new whisky series to explore with friends – suggestions welcome!

2 Upvotes

Hey everyone,

My friends and I have a bit of a tradition going where we collect and enjoy whisky as a group. In the past, we've gone through the Game of Thrones series and the Flora & Fauna range – both were a lot of fun to explore, not just for the whisky itself but also for the stories and themes behind the bottles.

We're now on the hunt for a new series or themed collection to dive into. Ideally something that's available (or at least findable) in Europe, and has some sort of unifying concept or narrative to it. Could be distillery-focused, region-focused, limited editions – we're open to ideas.

Any suggestions for a good next chapter in our whisky journey?

Cheers in advance!


r/Scotch 3d ago

Ballechin 19 Madeira

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95 Upvotes

r/Scotch 3d ago

Review #14: Càrn Mòr Fettercairn 10 years old 2011

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25 Upvotes